Can Money Buy Happiness?

06/09/2015 8:43 AM IST
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Updated
15/07/2016 8:25 AM IST

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Money tree snapped over with money falling to the ground, US currency

Don't be too concerned about money, because all it will do is distract you from achieving happiness. And the irony of ironies is that people think they will be happy when they have money. Money has nothing to do with happiness. If you are happy and you have money, you can use it for happiness.

If you are unhappy and you have money, you will use that money for more unhappiness. Because money is simply a neutral force.

Don't misinterpret me: I am not against money. I am not against anything. Money is a means. If you are happy and you have money, you will become happier. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will become more unhappy because what will you do with your money? Your money will enhance your pattern, whatsoever it is. If you are miserable and you have power, what will you do with your power? You will poison yourself more with your power, you will become more miserable.

But people keep looking for money as if money is going to bring happiness. People keep looking for respectability as if respectability is going to give them happiness. People are ready, at any moment, to change their pattern, to change their ways, if more money is available somewhere else.

Once the money is there, then suddenly you are no longer yourself; you are ready to change.

This is the way of the worldly man. Remember, I don't call a person worldly because he or she has money. I call them worldly if they change their motives for money. This applies to people with no money as well - they may simply be poor. Just being poor is not equivalent to being spiritual; and just being rich is not equivalent to being a materialist. The materialistic pattern of life is one in which money predominates over everything.

The non-materialistic life is one in which money is just a means: happiness predominates, joy predominates, your own individuality predominates. You know who you are and where you are going, and you are not distracted.

Then suddenly you will see your life has a meditative quality to it.

But somewhere along the way everybody has missed the point. You were brought up by people who have not arrived. You were brought up by people who were unhealthy themselves. Feel sorry for them. I am not condemning them or asking you to go against them. Just feel compassion for them. The parents, the schoolteachers, the university professors, the so-called leaders of society -- they were unhappy people. They have created an unhappy pattern in you.

And you have not yet taken charge of your life. They were living under a misinterpretation -- that was their misery. And you are also living under a misinterpretation.